Orchidaceae

Monocotyledons
Second largest family after Asteraceae
Most common in moist tropical forests where frequently EPIPHYTIC
Roots mycorrhizal, with multiseriate epidermis of dead cells known as VELAMEN
Leaves usually alternate, DISTICHOUS (Arranged in two vertical rows on opposite sides of an axis), rarely opposite, venation
parallel, stipules absent, stomata tetracytic.
Inflorescence racemose, spicate or paniculate, sometimes with solitary flowers

Flowers

Bisexual, very rarely unisexual, zygomorphic, usually showy, often twisted 180o during development (RESUPINATE)
Perianth differentiated into sepals and petals.
o Sepals 3, free or connate, usually petaloid, imbricate, similar or dorsal smaller, lateral more or less adnate to the
ovary.
o Petals 3, free; middle petal forming labellum or lip.
Androecium with usually 1 stamen, sometimes 2 (in Apostasia) or 3 ( in Neuwiedia), adnate to style and stigma forming a
column (GYNOSTEMIUM) opposite the lip, anther sessile on column, bithecous, dehiscence by longitudinal slit, introrse;
pollen grains powdery or waxy, agglutinated into POLLINIA, each pollinium with a sterile portion called caudicle, 2 to 8
pollinia formed in a flower.
Gynoecium with 3 united carpels, ovary inferior, unilocular with parietal placentation, rarely 3-locular with axile
placentation (Apostasia), stigmas 3, one often transformed into a sterile ROSTELLUM, latter often having a sticky pad
called VISCIDIUM attached to the pollinia; ovules numerous, minute, anatropous, tenuinucellate.
Fruit a loculicidal capsule or a sausage-shaped berry; seeds numerous, minute, embryo very minute, endosperm absent.
Pollination mostly by insects such as bees, wasps, moths and butterflies.
o Flowers of Ophrys resemble the female wasp and the pollination results from PSEUDOCOPULATION, male wasp
attracted by the shape and smell of the flowers, mistaking it for a female wasp.
o TINY DUST-LIKE SEEDS ARE DISPERSED BY WIND

Economic importance: vanilla flavouring obtained from the fruits Vanilla planifolia,

Advance characters Phylogeny

Monophyly of the family supported by morphology and rbcL sequences

The Orchidaceae is agreed upon by almost all botanists to be the most advanced family in Divided into three subfamilies: Apostasioideae, Cypripedioideae, and Orchidoideae
the monocots for the following reasons

1. It is an immense family of 20000 species.

2. Plants only herbs, Cosmopolitan all over the globe.
3. Leaves exstipulate.
4. Adventitious roots
5. Flowers small and inconspicuous, zygomorphic due to labellum, Epigynous flowers.
6. Reduction in number of stamens to two or one.
7. Adhesion of stamens with style and stigma to form-column.
8. Gynoecium 3, syncarpous and inferior.
9. Reduction in the number of fertile lobes of stigma to 2.
10. Modification of third sterile lobe of stigma into a structure called restellum.
11. Pollen-grains are agglutinate into pollinia.
12. Fruit is a simple capsule.
13. Seeds non-endospermic, minute-and light in weight

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